Training

Qi was, by nature, spread everywhere. From the small roots used as medicine to the still-burning ember inside a fire striker dropped by the gatherer who had plucked them, it made no distinction between living and nonliving things.

That energy was normally too weak to escape the body, but under certain conditions—especially in humans, when the qi inherent in the body was abundant—it could be released temporarily.

If released qi could not be controlled, it scattered into the air, with some of it absorbed by other nearby living things or objects. But…….

"If one succeeds in controlling even part of it, it takes on special properties. I named this 'battle qi,' and it can produce transcendent power or twist the laws governing the surroundings—or even oneself."

"Rrr……."

"Rrrr……."

"Are you listening?"

"Tsk, yes, sir."

"Don't fall asleep while the captain is talking."

I gathered the subordinates who showed promise at a training ground carved out of a slope. I tried lecturing them on the knowledge of qi I had organized so far, but as expected, not one of them properly understood it.

Of course they didn't. They had never even learned how to write the three characters of their own names, and the only books they had read in their entire lives were the ones they looked at in the latrine after doing their business to check whether they had wiped properly. What could I possibly expect from them?

The soldier who had proudly declared that he was not illiterate was busy pretending to be awake with his one remaining eye covered by an eyepatch.

That was all right. After all, even I, possessing the body of Yoo Hyun, a mountain boy, didn't know much about writing.

So I decided to teach them in my own way.

"In short, once you fill your bodies with enough of that qi and then burst it out, you'll grasp the knack."

"How are we supposed to do that?"

"Like this."

Bam! Blood flowed from Park Gyu's head after it was struck by the large stone I threw. As I walked among the flustered men, I quietly rolled up my sleeves and told them to pick up the weapons I had brought.

"Qi is scattered everywhere. Pamagok's concentration is especially high. That's probably why the magical beasts have grown stronger too."

"Then……."

"You could learn by beating a magical beast to death, but wouldn't that take too long? I'll be your opponent."

Since I had awakened battle qi, I could deliberately release qi. But for them to receive it, they likewise needed to throw open every qi pathway in their bodies.

I could also teach them to release qi again and control it at will. Once they felt their lives were in danger, their bodies would convert it into battle qi on their own.

In other words, I planned to beat them until they were on the verge of death.

"Don't hold back. Come at me."

"What? But……."

They were more than a dozen men, all armed. I, meanwhile, was bare-handed, and the new recruits had never seen me fight.

Worried that a mistake might leave them having to dispose of a corpse, they hesitated. So I decided to give them a little motivation.

"Anyone who brings me to my knees even once will have half of his sentence cut."

"……!!!"

"But if not a single one of you manages to bring me to my knees, know that I'll add a month to each of your sentences."

The most powerful authority a commander of a penal unit had for controlling convicts was the power to reduce their sentences or grant them a complete pardon.

Though I granted them reasonable conveniences as long as they didn't disrupt discipline, never once had I released a prisoner early. The men who had been hesitating moments ago began to glint ominously with determination.

"Hyaah! Dieeeee!"

Starting with Chun-sik, who charged first and swung his sword, the subordinates attacked one after another.

.

.

.

"Guh. Haaah……."

"Damn it!"

"I was sure I could do it."

"Do you like it here so much? You've still got a long way to go. Keep working at it."

I returned to the barracks and dumped those who couldn't move a finger into the living quarters. Then I stopped by the bathhouse, washed off the dust and blood, and emerged whistling.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Training my subordinates was important not only as a way to get back at the commanders of the other units, but also to strengthen our forces.

But if I'm passing on the know-how I learned by risking my life, shouldn't I get something out of it too?

'Judging by how quickly they learn, I could add two years to even the fastest one's sentence.'

Two years on their sentences. That was cheap in exchange for teaching them how to handle qi.

As I headed to my office with a light step, a familiar face approached from across the corridor.

She wore a black robe matching her hair, cinched with a cord reminiscent of an obi. Her neat attire was matched by an expression almost devoid of emotion, but when she faced me, a glint appeared in her golden eyes.

"You've come, Captain Yoo Hyun."

"Yeah."

"I heard that training the convicts begins today. It seems the laundry will increase. Shall I tell the servants?"

"Do that."

If a demon appeared and offered to end all my subordinates' sentences, I would sell even my soul. But there was one person I wanted to get out of here quickly.

Yeon-ri.

She was the girl who had been caught in the clutches of Jang Mu, the Border Guard commander, in the banquet hall. Perhaps she thought I had saved her by getting rid of him, because ever since then, she had insisted on serving me and hovered around me.

She was clever and nimble-fingered, so the amount of miscellaneous work I had to do had genuinely decreased. And because she was good at keeping her distance, she wasn't bothersome enough to annoy me. But merely showing her face in the camp caused a problem.

"Gulp."

"Ahem…… Captain! Nothing unusual on watch."

The problem was that the soldiers kept getting distracted by her exceptionally beautiful appearance. There were many young women among the laborers in the penal unit, but none drew as much attention as Yeon-ri.

"I told you not to come in and out of my office as you please."

"It is my fault. Since I have committed an act of disloyalty, I will gladly accept a ten-year extension to my sentence."

Warning her was useless. Most people would tremble at even a single day added to their sentence, but she bowed as if she had been waiting for this moment.

The only way was to pay her no attention. Just as I was ignoring her appropriately as usual and about to return to work, Yeon-ri caught hold of me. Her long eyelashes fluttered rapidly, opening and closing like butterfly wings.

"Yoo Hyun, may I make one request?"

"What is it?"

"I want to learn that battle qi as well."

"No."

"Why not?"

Did I really need to say? Half the soldiers sprawled in the barracks couldn't properly move their arms or legs.

I had used a crude method of literally beating qi into their bodies, but could I do the same to her? After hearing my explanation, Yeon-ri too nodded repeatedly in understanding……

"It's all right."

"What?"

"If I can be of help, I can endure that much pain without trouble. If you wish, Yoo Hyun, you may even seize me by the hair."

"……"

"What do you think?"

I decided to pretend I hadn't heard that.

"But I understand the principle. If the aim is to take in qi and store it within the body, there must be more than one way to do it."

"There will be later. Right now, we don't have time, so this is the fastest."

"There's one more thing I'm curious about."

"What now?"

"What is your battle qi, Yoo Hyun?"

A brief silence fell over the office.

"It seems battle qi manifests differently for each person. What kind of battle qi do you possess, Captain Yoo Hyun? Could it perhaps be……"

— Ding-ding-ding!

Just as she was about to say something, the alarm bell rang from the watchtower.

*

A magical beast had infiltrated the camp. One beast. Threat level: Class 3. Judging by the sound and number of alarm bells, that was what it meant.

Though the gorge was firmly sealed by walls built of rock and timber, magical beasts, which appeared amid purple halos of light, could show up in civilians' living areas at any time. Even several trained soldiers would have difficulty killing a Class 4 or higher magical beast without casualties.

"We'll continue this conversation later."

The elite troops were in no condition to fight after training, so Yoo Hyun went himself. Yeon-ri followed behind him, lengthening her stride toward the north, not far from the military camp.

"Aah!"

"My body—my body won't move!"

Screams came from afar. A giant snake was sitting atop a house, threatening the residents inside the fortress.

Even though neither its fangs nor its tail had touched them, the bodies of those standing within the direction of its gaze were stiffening. Yoo Hyun appeared among the soldiers, who were likewise spitting stone dust from their mouths.

"Drive everyone far away and surround the area with sandbags so they remain out of its sight."

"Captain!"

"Don't make eye contact with it, either. I'll deal with it myself."

He quickly identified the magical beast's weakness and told his subordinates what to do. Even as he did so, he paid no heed to the danger, picking up a spear and approaching the giant snake.

"Yoo Hyun, that's dangerous……!"

Before they could stop him, Yoo Hyun drove his spear into the magical beast's eye. At the same time, his body began to stiffen.

One of the snake's front fangs bored into his shoulder, and its tail coiled around his legs. Crack! The sound of bones breaking rang out with brutal clarity.

"You bastard?"

Though his left arm had turned gray, he gripped the spear again with his right. Twisting at the waist, he gave the shaft embedded in the snake's eye a single sweep, and the beast thrashed violently.

Ruins and dust flew in every direction. Yoo Hyun's body was thrown violently along with them.

That was when Yeon-ri noticed something strange.

The arm Yoo Hyun used to seize and pull out the snake's fang lodged in his nape had already returned to its original color. The torn skin and muscle had not healed yet, but even when the magical beast glared at him with its one remaining eye, he no longer stiffened as before. Yoo Hyun's battle qi had manifested.

"Regeneration? No, that's……."

"Adaptation."

"Pardon?"

"That's what he called it."

Park Gyu had somehow come up beside her. The other subordinates were there too.

They had dragged their battered bodies, barely able to grip even a spear, all the way here. For the sake of their captain.

"It wasn't the immortality the First Celestial Emperor had sought. Adaptation takes time, and if your neck is broken before then, you simply die."

"The Yashin shaman saw it correctly. Tsk, I really don't like those people."

'I was told not to oppose you if I couldn't take your life with my first shot. It would be unwise to drag out a fight against you.'

Those were Yul-ta's parting words.

As more time passed, the beast's poison, tail, and gaze no longer had any effect on Yoo Hyun. After resetting the bones in his broken leg, he drove a sword given to him by a subordinate into the crown of its head, and only then did it stop moving.

"Good work."

"Cut out the useful parts, and bury the rest somewhere far away—it's poisonous."

"Yes, sir!"

As Yoo Hyun tore off his ragged clothes and headed back to the office, Yeon-ri hurried after him. A small hesitation colored her steps, unlike before. It was guilt.

"See? That's roughly what it is."

In fact, that wasn't the question she had wanted to ask in the office.

She had wondered whether Yoo Hyun used his battle qi to manipulate people's minds.

From her perspective, she couldn't understand how Yoo Hyun remained unharmed despite a convict taking over the Border Guard commander's position, or why the other prisoners sincerely followed him. Even though some of those prisoners had been dragged here solely because they had been framed.

"Anything else you're curious about?"

"Doesn't it…… hurt?"

"It hurts like hell."

But now, she thought she understood.

"Even so, I can endure this much pain."